Cloud Management for Catalyst Switches: Device Onboarding and Configuring in Dashboard

I Hello everybody. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. My name is Jason and together with my fellow customer success specialists Max.00:00We're gonna talk about cloud management for catalyst switches.00:20And covering, we'll be covering the device onboarding and configuration in the dashboard. A quick note before we get started, if you have any questions during the presentation, please feel free to ask them using the Q and A panel and our panelists will work to get your questions answered.00:23To view the Q and A panel, you can click on the three dots in the bottom right of the Webex window, then click Q and A In that Q and A window select all panelists in the ask dropdown list, type your question and click send.00:41If we don't have the answer to your question at this time, we'll take note of that and follow up with you after the meeting. Additionally, an interactive live Q and A will follow the presentation, allowing you, allowing your questions to be answered directly, and we will be posting links to documentation for the topics discussed during the presentation at that time.00:57As well. With that, let's get started with our session and take a look at our agenda. We're gonna start with an overview of cloud management, discuss the two options for configuration sources. What needs to be in place to onboard each of the configuration sources?01:17What it looks like to onboard each, take a closer look at some features and we'll end with the Q and A So why move to cloud management? What are we trying to achieve by bringing devices into the dashboard?01:37Our goal is to blend the simplicity of the cloud with the performance and capability of the full iOS XE feature set. And throughout this presentation, we'll show you how we do that. The 1st thing you need is hardware.01:53And the beauty of cloud management with cloud enabled iOS XE is that you get a unified cloud platform built on your existing hardware. As you can see, the catalyst 9200 9395 hundreds are listed on this slide.02:10There are many, there are too many supported models to list here and we'll provide a link at the end during the Q and A of all the supported models. The list of smarter models is updated regularly, so be sure to check back and see if the switch you're looking for.02:25Is on that list if it isn't currently. The real key here is that you don't need new hardware to make the move to the cloud. Bringing your catalyst switches into the dashboard allows you to take full advantage of the cloud platform.02:42Giving you a unified view of your Cisco network infrastructure, you can gain data driven insights, the ability to see devices connected across your network and application visibility into network traffic. You also gain the visibility needed to optimize your network and accelerate troubleshooting with port level.02:58Packet and the error counters.03:18Proactive dashboard alerts, a cloud CLI and remote packet captures. Another great aspect of cloud management is the flexibility of choosing the configuration source for your switch. There are two options for a configuration source, cloud management.03:20With configuration source cloud, which I'll refer to as cloud mode and cloud management with configuration source device, which I'll refer to as device mode. The key difference between configuration sources is that with cloud mode, the switch becomes fully cloud managed, meaning that all.03:40All configurations performed from the dashboard and pushed from the dashboard to your switch.04:00With device mode, the switch is configured via CLI. The configuration stays with a switch and is pushed to the dashboard and you gain additional insights visibility and features from the dashboard. Having these two options allows you to maintain operational flexibility with cloud management.04:07Prior to is iOS XE 1715, we were using a container based architecture that leveraged a container to proxy communication between dashboard and the switch. You may have seen CS firmware for catalyst switches in the dashboard, and that's what that was. Moving forward.04:29Any existing switches on the CS firmware will need to transition to iOS XE 1715 plus any switches that you bring into dashboard as a new switch will need to start with iOS XE 1715 plus.04:49Aside from all the speed and storage benefits of moving away from the container, we free up space on this on the switch for things like thousand eyes, which should be coming in the near future to ISXC. Now let's talk about each of the configuration sources.05:051st up, we have cloud mode, which provides a fully cloud managed experience. After transitioning to cloud mode, your switch is exclusively managed via the dashboard. The switch config is stored in cloud and synced to iOS XE.05:25Once you move to cloud mode, you won't be able to access the CLI of your switch with a console cable. There is a local status page for your switch in cloud mode to supplement that, and in the future there will be a local read only CLI as well.05:41Well, you don't have local console access currently, you do have a cloud CLI which allows you to remotely run show commands from the dashboard. And the process of transitioning a switch to cloud mode takes about ten to 15 min.05:58Moving to device mode allows you to retain the features and CLI level of control that you've always had. The configuration is stored in IOSC and synced with the cloud for backups and comparisons, and then we also.06:16Push the information for assurance and troubleshooting. Device mode gives you access to cloud CLI and the dashboard read write capabilities just like you were SSH into a switch. Changes made via the cloud CLI for device mode can be seen in the dashboard change log.06:32So you gain visibility into the changes that are made and who's making them. You can also lock this down if you'd like with the option to set the access mode for cloud CLI, you have the option for read only access or read write access, and you can also require authentication to launch the cloud CLI.06:52And the process of switching to device mode takes around five to 10 min. Now that we've discussed each of the configuration modes, let's take a closer look at some of the available features.07:13Health and assurance, this applies to both configuration sources. This is the data we're collecting from the switch, including real time switch and port health. From the dashboard, we can see the see what ports have connections.07:30And click on each port to show port status and traffic information. It's like running a show interface on the switch, but all right there in front of you on the dashboard. There is also at visibility and traffic analytics. We can see which clients are connected to this, to a switch and take that a step further with traffic analytics.07:45Image upgrades from the dashboard. Currently, this only applies to switches in cloud mode. This will be coming to switches and device mode in the future as well. Cloud CLI applies to both but in different ways. For cloud mode, we have read only.08:06The show commands and device mode can be read only if you lock that down or in read write mode. You'll need to check early access in dashboard under organization, configure early access to enable some of these features today.08:22Currently those are cloud CLI for cloud native iOS XE, cloud monitoring configuration history and cloud monitoring packet capture. All of those are currently in early access. So where are we at? We've talked about cloud management, the two configurations.08:39Sources, some features.08:59And I'm sure you're all saying that's great, but what about licensing, right? Everybody always has questions about licensing. I have some great news when it comes to licensing. Starting 1 February of this year, Cisco is offering a three year cloud entitlement for DNA licensing.09:01That means if you have an active DNA license, you can manage eligible catalyst switches and access points directly within the dashboard through 1 February of 2029 at NO additional cost. You can leverage cloud based management without requiring a license exchange, additional meraki.09:19License purchases or any disruption to your current DNA investment. This offer applies to catalyst 9000 hardware originally shipped with iOS XE software, and your account team can help you out with any of the various scenarios and questions you may have regarding licensing.09:39Next, we'll cover the process of onboarding your switch into dashboard. The switching team has done an excellent job of making this a straightforward process. The 1st step is to upgrade.10:01And you may not even need to do that if you're already on a supported version of iOS XE. When you have your switch on a supported version, the next step is to establish the Meraki tunnel connection. To do this, we verify all prerequisites are completed.10:15When that's done, a tunnel to the Meraki Cloud can be established after running the service Meraki Connect command. As part of the connection process, we will obtain a cloud ID that we can use to easily claim and add devices in dashboard.10:33Once we claim and add the devices, the configuration is automatically applied based on the mode selected. So if you selected configuration source cloud, the switch will factory reset and reload into cloud mode. The configuration is on the cloud and is synced to the device.10:51There's it's slightly disruptive because of that reload, but when the process is complete, you have a cloud switch. When you select configuration source device, you'll need to enter level 15 access credentials for that switch.11:10Dashboard uses the supplied credentials to access the switch, upload an EM script and run that script. The script will add code, the code needed to send monitoring data from the switch to the Meraki Cloud over the tunnel that was established. The script does not change or remove any of your existing code.11:26When it's when the when it's completed the script is erase from flash yeah so it's not disruptive, your switch stays up the entire time. No need to reload or anything. Let's take a closer look at moving to configuration source cloud.11:46There are a few prerequisites as I had mentioned, there, the 1st one is we need to make sure outbound TCP port 443 access to the Cisco Cloud is active ensuring secure communication is established.12:05Connectivity must be via the front panel, not the management interface. Default VRF is in operation for all cloud communications, and IP routing mode is required for the Meraki tunnel service. We need to ensure routes are in place to reach external addresses including a default route.12:21And use of the IP default route is not supported.12:41We also need DNS configured and resolving host names for cloud and tunnel services, NTP synced and providing accurate time. Triple AAA also needs to be configured using local authentication and authorization.12:45Once all of this is confirmed, we can move on to connecting to the Meraki tunnel. Before we connect, we just wanna double check that we're on a supported version. We can run a show version to check the version of the switch. We can also run a show Meraki compatibility.13:01As you can see, the both the switch skew and version are compatible, so we're ok to proceed. If we run show Meraki, we can see this switch has not been connected to the Meraki cloud.13:20That is because at this point in the process we haven't run any commands to establish a connection between the switch and the Meraki cloud. If you look at the output, there is NO cloud ID, which will need to claim the switch and dashboard. I just wanted to show you this now so we can take a look after we make some changes and see what the.13:36Output looks like.13:56To establish the tunnel with the cloud, we run service meraki connect. A small note here, if you have one of the newer supported smart switches, you might see a com the command service cloud management connect. It's the same as running a service Meraki Connect. Just a little bit, just worried a little.13:59Differently. If you'd like to see the tunnel come up, you can run term on before running service Meraki Connect. After we run the command service Meraki Connect and the tunnel comes up, you can run a show Meraki Connect to see the tunnel status.14:17And the cloud ID. Let's take another look at show Meraki after we establish the tunnel. We now see some new information including the cloud ID migration status and mode. At this point, we have a switch that is connected to the Meraki cloud.14:35No configuration has been pushed yet as we haven't claimed or added the devices to the network. So let's take a look and see how we do that. From our show meraki, we know our cloud ID and we know the tunnel is up.14:53There are a few places you could start the process of adding your switch. Probably the most direct way is go to the network where you would like to add your switch and go to the switches page and dashboard and click add switch. If you have per device licensing, you'll see an option at the bottom of the screen that says claim.15:09Individual devices. If you have subscription licensing, you'll see a claim devices button, then an option to claim individual devices. Either way, when you click on claim individual devices, you'll see the pop up window on the left.15:27Here you enter the cloud ID of the switch and click claim device. What this does is it brings the switch into inventory. At this point dashboard knows that your organization has claimed the switch, but we haven't assigned it to a network yet to do this.15:43We would select the switch from the inventory page, click add to network. This will bring up the window on the right where we select cloud configuration and click save. Because we selected cloud mode, the factory reset process will start and the switch will pull down.16:00The new config from dashboard. If you aren't ready to push the config for your switch, you could take note of cloud ID, run a service NO meraki connect to break the tunnel, then claim the device. And when you're ready for the switch to pull down its new config, run a service Meraki Connect again to.16:19Reestablish that tunnel. So just to recap that process again, if you don't want to push the config right away, you do your service meraki connect, copy your cloud ID, NO service Meraki connect to break your tunnel, then claim and add your device in the dashboard.16:39Set up your config in your dashboard, so you go to your switch, set up your ports however you'd like them, then run service Meraki Connect again on the switch from the command line to establish the tunnel and push the config from dashboard to your switch.16:57Once all of this is done, we've added the switch to the network. We can see it in dashboard on the switches page, and well, there's a configuration source column and you can enable that by clicking the gear configuration source if you don't see that.17:15And this switch is now in cloud mode. Admittedly, a lot of this next part is gonna look very familiar, so we'll go through it pretty quickly because it's very much the same. The only change on the prerequisites for device mode is that we need.17:33The user privileges, so we need a device onboarding user account with privilege 15 access on the switch. The compatibility check is exactly the same. The show Meraki will look the same.17:53We follow the same exact steps to establish the tunnel. After we establish a tunnel, we'll see the cloud ID just as we had with cloud mode. The place where it changes is, when we add the device to another.18:15Network. The claiming and adding the device to the network is the claiming part is the same, so we follow the same process to get to that, the image you see on the left with claim individual devices. We'll bring the, and that will bring the device into inventory.18:32At this point, again, dashboard knows that your organization has claimed the switch, but we haven't assigned it to a network yet. To do this, we would select the switch from the inventory page and click add to network. This is where we select device configuration for device mode, click next.18:51Because we selected device configuration, we need to enter the username and password we talked about so that we can make the necessary config changes on the switch. Clicking next will start the process of dashboard pushing the EM script.19:08To the switch along the switch to send information back to the cloud. And once we've added the switch to the network, we can check the switches page and see that this switch is now in configuration source, has a configuration source of device.19:23And we're good to go. So now I'm gonna hand it over to Max, who is going to give us a demo of what this looks like and also talk about some cloud management features.19:41All right, thank you Jason. Let me bring my lap real quick. So the 1st thing that we were running is basically the compatibility check that Jason explained before. What the check does.20:01This basically confirming that the switch model is supported in the Meraki dashboard, so you can see we're just running this we check the version, which are the show Meraki compatibility and we're just checking up if the device and the software that he has is compatible with, with Meraki.20:16Another quick validation is that we can basically the communication to the dashboard and as described by jason, there are some requirements here like you know ensuring the communication with the global VRF and the domain name lookup configuration for the whole solution. But I mean running this is very fairly simple, all I'm doing here is just pinging the dashboard.Meraki.20:32Welcome, the DNS configuration is able to translate that into an IP where that I can, you know, reach to ICMP and that's pretty much, you know, checking that that is reachable and working.20:51Another important requirement and to be honest, I'm not sure that we mentioned this before, but it's kind of basically makes sense anytime we work with network devices is ensuring that our clock is properly synchronized. So here is why I'm just during the show clock to see if I am gaining, you know, as the timeframe that I have configured.21:05Now that we are sure that we have everything properly, we just need to enable the switch side service in iOS XE by running the service Meraki Connect command. This command will basically open the panel that Jason explained between the switch and the Meraki dashboard and this is where we are registering the switch basically.21:25We can be able to validate the status of the tunnel, I mean, if we really want to check the status, we can do the show which we are we will be able to see the configuration. This command will show everything that that goes around the the connectivity between in the catalyst switch and the Meraki dashboard. So here e.g., I just run this the same.21:45The switch is registered. I can see that the service connect, the service connect is enabled in the switch.22:06And by running this command just making and validating that the tone and everything is ready. Now there's a specific section in the apple of this command that will provide the registration detail for the switch and those details are needed if we want to claim the device over to Meraki dashboard.22:11The Meraki registration will use our own catalyst centers serial number, which is the serial number from our catalyst center to generate that unique clarity that we will bring into the dashboard so we can claim it in our network. And this is in essence the simplest onboarding experience that we are offering when we are opting 40 solutions, so this is part of of the whole process. We are simplifying.22:28Everything in in this new process, but just run a couple of commands and just making sure that with the registration that we have with the Meraki dashboard, we're able to to generate this clarity.22:47So now that we have the cloud ID, we can bring into the dashboards and from here I mean you can basically either go into into your switching, you know, switches here list and add a new switch or oops, sorry, and the new switch or to just jump directly into the organization here and just.22:57Jump into the inventory that we that we have down here, then this is basically the view that we will see.23:17All we need to provide is basically the same cloud ID that we brought from the so what we have to do is type in the serial number, the cloud ID that we generated, and with that we just claim the device and we should be able to see the the new device in here.23:23Now once this device is claiming into the organization inventory because this is the inventory of the organization, you can now assign it to a network and this is where we just need to select the device and add this to a networking here. And this is you know an important step as this is where we will have the option to select the configurations.23:39Hopeful that's true.23:58By claiming catalyst switches devices into the network, you will have two primary paths for management and configuration sources. And the choices will really depends on your own operational needs. If you chose the, you know, the, if you choose the cloud configuration, the configuration source cloud path, the switch must be factory defaulted at.24:00Jason explained.24:20Meaning that this is essentially a disruptive process. It will basically reloading the switch into cloud config mode and the configuration will be directly synchronized between the catalyst switch that is, you know, locally in our network and the cloud, the Meraki cloud that we have here. So, so this is all part of that same process.24:22And if we choose the configuration source device, you are basically retaining your configuration.24:42But you are simply, you know, just entering local credentials. And a quick warning here, even though this is a non disruptive process for the devices, there will be some configuration pushing to the device. And this is why we need to provide a level 15 configuration access credential. The dashboard will basically apply the supplementary script.24:48To enable the monitoring the switch, the same process that Jason described, but we are just seeing here.25:08For this example, I am selecting, you know, I will be using the device configuration example. So just type in your credentials here, type in the the your username and password and the areas enabled password so you can just log into the device and the dashboard will basically apply everything that is needed, asset the terms and conditions and they just click.25:13And as you can see, the device is NO longer in my inventory, it's jumping directly into my switch list of devices that I have here, alright?25:33If before I go to the today's one, if you were to select the cloud configuration operation, the process is very similar with the with what we just saw with the main difference that we will see a warning message highlighted that the process will basically wipe up all the configuration that we have in the switch in order to be able to claim it.25:42The script I mean we have a script that will be remotely running to the switch and you are basically losing access to the CLI access you know access that we have in, in that switch. After a couple of minutes, the switch will just be just come up and will be manageable through, through the dashboard.26:00The important here is that whatever choice you select, once you assign you know once the assigning process finished and the the whole assignment to a network process, you'll see that the switching your switch inventory like the one that we're seeing in here that you'll be able to start working with the configuration of this device.26:19Alright, and there you go. We just connected a solution to the meraki dashboard by typing a simple CLI command. We generated a cloud ID that we brought into the dashboard, use that same ID to claim into the organization and then assign that switch into a network. So as you can see the onboarding process can really take a few.26:37It's not super complex unless you're using the cloud scenario where it will probably take a couple more minutes but again the process is still very simple.26:58Alright, so let's go back to the slides before we jump into the next demo. Let me just click on the next one. So let's talk about the future that we have for you know Meraki and and catalysts. And let's talk about the health and assurance option that we have.27:08This switch basically provides real time visibility into the switch, all these components and the ports health data that we have here. It does use AI driven insights to help you proactively identify any issues that we might have in into the devices before they actually impact your users. This is important.27:26Done an important feature that everyone wants to check once or twice whenever we want, and I'll show you this in a minute in a minute. And just so just so you know this is one of those features that we have available for both cloud and device configuration shows.27:46For the cloud CLI, this is a actually a game changer. I mean it's a CLI embedded cloud hosted terminal that allows you to run any familiar CLI commands that you know directly into the dashboard without needing any VPN or jump host. As long as you.28:04You have access to our browser and as long as your credentials have the privilege that to basically work around with this, you'll be able to log into your Meraki dashboard and run any CLI command that you want. If you want to perform remote troubleshooting, you can just open your own console and start running everything that you want to see here. Besides the old all the different.28:22An options that we have in the dashboard that you can access and and review the I mean, there are some like to see, you know, the, the actual code within the switch and this is where we can just type in any commands and troubleshoot whatever we need. Here I'm just we are just running a show IP router BGP to actually check what is going on with, with the routing table for BGP, so I mean, that's kind of an example of.28:42Things that we can learn from from here.29:02For configuration history and this is another cool one that we have in here, the dashboard is basically automatically taking snapshots of your configuration changes. So this basically allows you to compare any version that you have of that configuration, you can identify any groups and you can even troubleshoot more faster whenever you have.29:05Something to compare to to a previous, you know, concept that you have. In the past we we used to, you know, run different tools to basically do a comparison between one configuration and the other. You have that tool already available within the dashboard.29:24And these conflicts will be available for downloading if you want and we even have plans to enable you to restore the options based on the backup conflict version that you have, right? So we have several options now that that we can just review and validate for this.29:37I'm guessing stuff for the time, ok, so let me just go back really quick, let me share my screen again. You should be able to see my screen once again. Alright.29:56So, to view all the details, you can just click on the whole thing that you have in here of the switch and you know the we have a list here, this is the switching list that we have for the Meraki devices that we have. I just modified this tables so I can see which devices has been configured with the devices and which devices are configured with cloud source.30:14We have several catalyst switches in here that we can review, and as you can see we have some clients and everything.30:33So if I click one of those switches, I can just jump into one of those and just you can see this is the main dashboard, the main view that we have for that switch. Several information can be grabbed from here and e.g. we can see that we have the serial numbers in here on the on the left.30:39And for both, you know, the catalyst switch and the cloud ID that we have, you know, created, we have all that information from here. We can also review the information like the device uptimes here. We also have the firmware version. We can review the IPs that we have assigned to the switch. We have an IP here, we have the public IP and an additional.30:55We cannot.31:15Or modified the notes physical address in here, we have the physical address for the node, this is where this is located, and we can even change any tags that we have or even add or assign notes to to the configuration that we have in this switch. So this is this is just the main view that we have and on on your right you have a representation of your of your ports that you have for this switch.31:16You can even see like a legend of what each of these ports represents. We also have an historical data device data where we can reach or review the connectivity for this device for the last month if you want. You can review the usage of of all the, you know, the global traffic that is going or flowing through this switch and you can even see the amount of clients that we have connected.31:36Right now, the villas they have assigned and everything. So this is a great view that we can review.31:56Now one of the advantage of the device is that we will keep the privilege to the CLI access. And as explained on the slides as explained by Jason, explained by by me, we will be able to gain access from whatever we are as long as we have access to our browser. So all we had to do is just clicking here.32:02And basically the future will offer you this interactive command experience based on the user privileges that you have provided. And this is important because if we're using read only users, we will only have access read only access, right? I mean we configuration mode will not be accessible.32:20Whenever you are typing full access users only. So if we were to provide full access to my dashboard, sometimes and this is something that sometimes this happens, the Meraki dashboard will ask you to validate those credentials for the configuration mode. And once you type in those credentials, everything will be, you know, full access, the full access.32:37Issue will be synchronized across your dashboard for this switch and you will be able to modify the configuration view and modify the configuration from anywhere in the switch that you want e.g. here. So here, as you can see we have only read read only access you can see that in here but you can just run any command that you want and and just start generating those, you know, those commands.32:57We can we can and you can you'll be able to see, you know, interfaces and everything, and this is just, you know, simple command lines but this if you have the the end of access you can even go into config mode and change it in the UI. The port type in here is another amazing example.33:17And because from here we can view and modify all our ports in the switch. So if you can see, we have the same representation here at the top, but if you go scroll down you have a list of all the ports that you have in the network, and you can review those ports from here. You can see the name of the port, you can see if we have discovered anything to LDP or CDP, we'll be able to see what sort of.33:35Associated with this port. If this an access port or this is a transport, another, other kind of information like e.g. the the link this if this comes on under auto negotiation we have any other type of configuration, the amount of traffic that has been flowing from this interface or back from this interface, and if for the.33:56And stuff like that.34:16So we can even click on the interfaces and we'll be able to see more details about this. We can see the clients that are connected to that specific port, the overall status, which devices are have been discovered through CDP and LDP, we support both for both protocols and more information about you know board traffic and usage troubleshooting, you can do a cable test if you want.34:17And basically this will basically just disrupt right for a minute but it will basically validate that we don't have any issue with the cable, Sometimes it happens. It's kind of a strange situation nowadays, but sometimes it happens and we can just do a cable tests to figure out and understand this something that really has been a.34:37Expecting my my connectivity, we can even cycle the ports. If we have an access point connected in here, we can just click on here and we will shut down and not shut down the port and we'll be able to see, you know, the, the whole cycle process turning on and turning off the the port again. And here we have a visibility over the total packet that has been formed for the last day. We can expand this view to other times.34:57Here we have, you know, we can see the live data, we can modify this for the last 5 min 50 min an hour a day. And you can see we are detecting whenever we have broadcast traffic multicast traffic CRC fragments collection, everything.35:17We also have here the, the event log and this is another one, another important one. This event log is essentially your syslog server, you'll be able to see any kind of message generating the CLI from here. So you can see you know anything that has been happening.35:35If something has been opened, it has been closed, if a port has been going down or anything, you'll be able to see that from here. This is the same thing that you just running the show lock and you have all that information from here.35:51The device, this is the other one that I wanted to show you had power supplies in here. This is something that directly related to the actual device. So you if you have more than one power supply, you'll be able to see those power supplies in here that the overall status. If you have a stack, you'll be able to see all of the members of the stack.36:08The power supplies associated to that stack and you know the serial numbers more than everything from that stack itself.36:24If you have again the stack powers cables connected, you'll be able to see, you know, the, the whole redundancy and everything. This is a representation of those ports, but you can see who will be the enabled if they are connected and what kind of power they are sharing and and consuming. Some statistics about the power of the internet usage, you have the amount.36:31The consumption of of the total amount of power that is being consumed right now and you also have an amount of budget power that you should be able to provide for these switch along, and you can see which devices are the one that are consuming that power right now, what what sort of power they are requesting and what how much power we're actually delivering for those.36:50Switch through for those devices.37:10I think I already explained this, but Meraki has a configuration change record too, and this is something that we can review from within the the organization here. We can review here in the organization we had the changelog. What is it, what is it? Change locking here?37:15From the monitor and from here you'll be able to see, you know, everything that is related to your organization, you'll be able to see any type of change that has been performed over your network. So if something happened if a user changed something, they modify configurations reports or anything, you should be able to see that that information from here. You should be able to.37:32See who made those changes, how they made those changes, if they just log in through a specific credentials or they've been using APIs or something like that to log into the device and make any changes, you'll be able to see all of that and from here you can track down all those changes.37:51Okay, in this window you have around 5000, but you can even expand that to to more and you can even use AI to summarize this and and and grab more information on what is going on with, with your network. Now let me jump really quick to a cloud sensors because it's important to always show the the the main.38:07Difference between device source and the cloud source.38:27Once you do the whole conversion for the cloud source, you are essentially converting this into a Meraki switch. Even though it's still running iOS xe, you can see that we are still running iOS XE. You are running this as switch within the dashboard. So you still have access to the summary, you should be able to see all those details from here. You.38:31Still have access to review the ports and make any change into the configuration from the dashboard.38:51The cloud CLI will also be in here but keep in mind that this is only at read only terminal even though you try, you won't be able to run anything in in with configuration access, even though you provided credentials something this is something that is running directly and associated directly to the dashboard and only the dashboard is the authority.38:57From from here, but this tool can be used if you want to run any, you know, troubleshooting commands or something just to make sure that that is providing information or do you have something else that you want to test or validate within the conflict. It's a limited configuration, only, you know, common troubleshooting tools are enabled in here, but I mean used.39:17You have access to some sort of CLI interfaces from, from the dashboard.39:37The device health is again showing you the same information so you you don't have any issue with that. Here is a change you now have access to a layer three routing table, so you should be able to see 04:20 tables, ARP tables for the MAC addresses. You should be able to see the routing table to see if those tables or the the routes that we are you.39:42Receiving or that you know we have synchronized with the rest of the network are static or they are generated by someone else or they are, you know, associated with with whatever is going on with the network or their dynamic of the part of the interfaces, whatever, right? So you have access to that routing table, you still have access to validate that information. Again, this is new.40:01If you wanted to do that from from the CLI you should basically need to enable routing and enable some stuff, but the cloud basically enables that because it's part of the global portfolio that Meraki can offers.40:22The other log also 1st part of the same things you should be able to see any change here that has been made through assist log within the the device, but you can see most of the credentials that we're using are basically the the actual Meraki credentials that, that they are using by default to login to device. If you try to plug in.40:33Through the CLI from directly from the the switch, you won't be able to plug in there, you won't be able to run anything.40:53Meraki also offers the DHCP tables so you should be able to validate and review whenever we have any subnets assigned to any VLANs and if any of your devices are connected to those VLANs, you can see the JCP server that are providing IP addresses to those devices and and here we have a table that can show you that kind of examples. You, you can go out to the routing this.41:02Configuration that you can go through all the different configuration that we have in here, just to make any type of changes to the switch but basically or essentially all of that data that a Meraki switch offers will be also available for the catalyst switch that you are using in.41:22The tool, that's another change that we have from from the switching in devices because the tools here offer more more options that you can run for, for the, for the switch. You can ping any device from any source that you are identifying. This is basically a way to make sure making sure that the device is reachable from any fields that we.41:40You can even run again the the same terminal and run any type of commands from here. You shouldn't be having issues with that. Just type in the command that you should be able to have to have access in here to run anything. The CLI the show CLI and SCP CLI, we are providing some templates or some.42:02Some commands that you can run if you wanted to do any sort of validation like e.g. show connected devices, you can just select the CLI template run this and will run everything for you and will provide all those details for you so you can, you know, validate and and review all that information. STP also for the same, you want to check this the spanning three tables, you can just.42:19On you know the summary, you can, you can review if you want to select specific SPR specific VLAN, you can just run the command and you should be able to see everything that you know is associated with that specific command.42:40If you want to identify that switch within the the rack that is installed, you can just link the legs, you can, you know, run a dashboard throughput to see how's the connection between the dashboard and the switch. You can do a trace route from here with the with all AP address that has been identified to any IP address that you have to just click on want and you should be able.42:54To start placing the route from this device to, to, to the destination and as you can see it will provide you all the different jumps and everything that we have from here.43:13And you we have more tests and more, more options that are just, you know, pretty standard for the Meraki experience for cloud services are that this is something associated and behaving as a Meraki switch, you also have access to all those tools from here that you can run and validate that, that information too.43:21Okay, so that's for now that's for the demo. Let me just go back into the slide for a quick final run, ok? Let's just go really quick through these slides, it's something fairly easy, don't boss I mean I.43:40I won't take it too much of your time. Now.44:00This particular slide is showing you all the different changes that we have for ISXE 1755. The important thing here to notice is that innovation those notes doesn't stop basically at the onboarding of of our switches in the dashboard. Now with iOS XE 17.44:03555 we are introducing significant stability improvements and will expand the you know more regional support. I remember that there was some users in Canada that were having issues, they now have support for this kind of experience too. And this is also, you know, an evolving technology. So every day we are bringing more to more ideas and options into the dashboard. We.44:23Now have more, more, you know, it's more available today the future used to be something more you know tied to to to availability, but now everyone should have access to this as long as they have a catalyst switch that is compatible and they you know.44:43The critical licensing. Moving into the 1718 one, we are now standardizing configuration management with smart ports, which you can basically configure repetitive port settings and any type of attributes creating profiles that basically automates the whole process.44:58Or you can even run intelligent capture to reduce that time spent on, you know, the packet analysis that we have for the switches. We also bring in the device health support where you can track down statistics and receive any sort of alerts, and we have the digital.45:17Optical monitoring for real time monitoring for from, you know, previous physical and operational parameters or the one that I have here. Okay, now we're looking at the major milestones here. The level of enterprise grade three.45:34Capabilities within the cloud management environment is a major change in in the network now. With 1718 one.45:54With this release, we are bringing advanced routing and high availability features to the catalyst 90 twos 9325 switches that are compatible. We are moved from we're way far beyond the basic connectivity and we are now supporting more complex architectures like e.g. the stack was virtual. We also offers.46:02The look for routed access, the scalable micro segmentation, we're also, you know, migrating or integrating robust routing protocols, including BGP support across, you know, those switches, and you have the compatibility between 92 hundreds and the MS 03:39 hundreds and.46:21Even the 90 threes and 95 series are also you know supporting now with with some of those futures. So as you can see, there's been several challenges and there have been several changes in future. Whether you are basically managing a small branch office or a large scale enterprise course, you now have the tools to implement features like the VRF light, we have.46:42We also offer flexible dynamic routing and another of it basically managed through the unified cloud dashboard that we are offering within Meraki.47:06And this is a release that has been effectively reaching reaching the gap, allowing you to deploy any sophisticated and high performance enterprise network without sacrificing the simplicity of the cloud management that Meraki offers.47:14The change to the next one. Here we are basically highlighting one of the most critical operational improvements for any network administrator which is the ISSU in service software upgrades. Historically, upgrading switches software mean that you need to schedule the maintenance window then you know you had to set the period of the network down to.47:29Time eh there was some validation that you had to run and you know and and you know the the the document they had to run everything, you know, opening cases blah blah blah. With the ISO in 1718 one.47:49You are now, we are changing and basically with this protocol with this process with this upgrade process, we are allowing you to upgrade your switch software while the network continues to forward packets you know without any downtimes ensuring that your users and devices stay connected through the whole process.48:02This is a remote extension feature, meaning that you can trigger this upgrade directly from the dashboard significantly reducing the manual effort of any kind of risk associated with, you know, onsite maintenance. And you can also minimize the any type of network disruption and downtimes. The protocol allows you to deploy any features.48:23Any new feature that you have in here, and you can even deploy security patches much, much faster than than the traditional.48:43You know methods. Right now this feature is currently in beta, but it's again it's a game changer, this is very very this has been requested several times for maintaining high availability in your mission your critical environments, this feature will change, you know, the way the way that we are.48:50Working with Meraki devices and and the switches.49:10I think this is like the the last slide so finally, let's look ahead to what's coming on in 1718 two release. We'll continue with the evolution, you know, of the platform with a dual focus on enhanced resilience and advanced management capabilities.49:14On the resilience front, we are introducing two key features where bringing the allow lists on a daily access feature which basically gives you even sizer control over security and access. And second, we are adding onespare support via VIRP. This is a significa.49:33So addition to those who need you know high availability mechanism and to ensure that the network stays up even in the event of a primary not failure.49:52Down below we had the advanced management where we are, we are making the dashboard even more powerful day to day operations. We are now introducing databases configurations which basically provides more granular control over your broadcast domains direct.50:02From the cloud and this is important because again, we're talking from the cloud. We're also rolling out smart port automation you already explained about this. You can automate any kind of, you know, tedious and repetitive configuration process that you need to run. You can automate that process. This is is also something that we have been early accessed but it's widely available.50:21And and this can help basically eliminate any manual configuration errors and and speed up the whole device deployment process that we are running up.50:43And for those, you know, with, that want to work with the complex of routing environments, we are adding enhancement that will, you know, include new trace routers and multicast living tools to basically to make sure.50:51That the troubleshooting runs much, much faster, and perhaps more significant where also introducing the cloud management EVPN so fabric support, which allows you to leverage the power of the EVPN without within sorry within your own fabric or or maintaining the same, you know, that.51:10Simple unified management experience that the Meraki dashboard is offering. So in short, you know, the 1782 version, it's all about giving you advanced tools that you need to run on more sophisticated and resilient and highly automated networks. Often this single pane of glass Meraki dashboard that we are offering now.51:28We're trying to.51:48Highlight for you guys today. All right, so I'll just pass the ball to Jason who will be you know taking care of the Q and A portion of the session. All right, thanks Max. Before we get to Q and AI just want to let you know there's a brief post.51:50Presentation survey, we appreciate it if you take a moment and fill that out. We'll be posting some of the helpful links in chat for you in just a moment here. Let's see. I just wanted to take a look at the questions for a moment and it looks like, oh yeah, if you have any questions, please raise your.52:10Hand and we'll get we'll take you off mute and answer those. We did have a question from Fernando earlier about the cloning process when you're replacing an MS switch with a catalyst switch. So we can do this with workflows in the dashboard.52:29There's a workflow in the workflow exchange called copy Meraki switch port configurations that is designed for this purpose, and this would work for Meraki to Meraki, Meraki to Cisco, Cisco to Cisco copies. I'm just gonna put that.52:47The links for that information in the chat now, so you have those and then let me grab the other links for you, and then I'll talk about those briefly.53:04So, quote a lot of links if you want to copy those out for now and paste them into notepad or whatever and revisit those later. But essentially, I provided the iOS XE landing page link so you can, that's kind of the starting point.53:21And then there's an overview page and also a resource page and FAQ page, the licensing page that we talked about earlier that would answer some of your licensing questions hopefully. Also the, the both pages for cloud configuration and device configuration with released versions.53:37Highlights and what the minimum version is required for that. Let's take a look here. I don't see anyone with their hand up, but if anyone has a question pop that into chat.53:57Or raise your hand, we'll take a look I don't see any other questions here.54:15Oh, here we go. Alright, so we have one. Can you please repeat, talk more about the switch firmware upgrades without user connection interruptions from what firmware totally available?54:36Is it only available for cloud managed devices or for all devices on this version? So I think that's what you had talked about right Max? The upgrades? Yes, correct. So this been available since I think it's 1781.54:53Your switch is not being installed in installed. I think it's called and connected to the Meraki dashboard. It's basically of course with the same train that we have for the 17 parts between the extended maintenance and releases. But yeah, I mean it's part of that process.55:08The firmwares are basically still within the Meraki dashboard and all devices that are automatically rebooted to the new version will maintaining connectivity. So it's I mean it's a it's a widely common process that we run on several solutions that we have in Cisco. We're also just now integrating that solution here with you know more more through the through the dashboard.55:28That we that we know and and are working out with.55:48Let me see if I got something else about that. Alright, any other questions from anyone?55:52Oh, there's one more, are there any plans to integrate access manager for device config mode or will it just or is it just for cloud config mode? That one I personally don't know the.56:11After that I might have to get back to you on that one.56:30Unless somebody else here knows, so we'll get back to Rob on that one. Another one in chat. Is there any free trial available for this Meraki before we are.56:34We're trying to buy license, so the Meraki dashboard.56:53Is free, you can sign up for a dashboard account that doesn't cost anything. And if you have a supported switch that already has DNA licensing, there's NO additional charge there. So if you know you have a free dashboard account to you can create an organization and if.56:58If you already have a switch and DNA licensing in place, you could, you wouldn't need to buy anything at this time then a another one in Q and A is there, is this feature only available for cloud connected devices?57:17I'm not sure what feature that is. I think it's probably access manager's right below it. But yeah, we'll, we'll check that and get back to you. Yeah.57:38All right, great question so far. Anything else? How can I get more information on smart port profiles? Let me check real quick.58:01Oh, I think I added it two different answers but I added the link for the smart books. I was doing the same, yeah.59:13I think the question on, is this feature only available for cloud connected devices? I think the question is for the firmware upgrades, and at this point yes, it is only available for.59:52Configuration source cloud, it will be available for configuration source device in future.01:00:11Okay alright cool. So.01:00:18He's on mute there. Yeah, so we'll wait and see if there's any more questions. I don't see any hands up or anything alright, well, great. I think that.01:00:37That will do it then. Thank you everybody for taking time on your day to join us. If you have any questions that we haven't answered, we'll follow up on those and let you know. Thanks again.01:00:56